


Current Location Unknown

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aromantic spectrum, Asexuality Spectrum, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Miscommunication, Multi, Naked Cuddling, Other, PTSD John, Polyamory, Relationship Negotiation, Sharing a Bed, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unconventional Relationship, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 09:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6417328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if John's relationship with Sherlock isn't confusing enough, there's a third person meant for them, somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A horse and an elephant

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a [Tumblr prompt](http://let-gavin-free.tumblr.com/post/117673589548/soulmate-au-where-when-you-write-something-on-your): Soulmate au where when you write something on your skin with pen or whatever, it will show up on your soul mate's skin as well.
> 
> The story is set after THoB, but before Reichenbach.

It was a cloudy spring evening in London. There’d been rain shortly before, and the air smelled almost clean, as if the pollution had been washed out. Neon lights in various colors were reflected in the puddles and wet surfaces, making the city look so unreal that it seemed as if miracles could happen any time.

John had seen many miracles happen during the time he’d spent with Sherlock, and he definitely needed one tonight.

Sherlock, who was walking next to him, seemed to be in cheerful spirits. After all, they’d once again caught a murderer, and he’d been given the opportunity to show off in front of the police more than once.

“This is the restaurant I told you about, John,” he explained, and turned left so quickly that John could hardly follow. “You’re hungry, I suppose?”

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

Inside, the restaurant was illuminated by table lamps and candlelight. The walls were made to resemble the walls of a cave or a wine vault, but apart from that, the furnishing was quite trendy.

“Looks expensive,” John stated, trying to cover up the shakiness in his voice. He was planning to ask Sherlock something he’d been wanting to say for some time, and it made him more than a little nervous.  
At least, the romantically comfortable atmosphere of this place seemed just right.

“Ah, you know how it is,” Sherlock replied to John’s remark. “I do this and that, people owe me a favor, I get free meals.”

 

A little later, they sat together at a table by the window.  
Whenever he went out for dinner with Sherlock, John felt that the table was either too big or too small, because either they sat so close to each other that it got awkward, or Sherlock was too far away. At the moment, he was definitely too far away. John didn’t want to have to speak too loud for what he wanted to say.  
He considered waiting until they left the restaurant, perhaps even until they got home… But then he would have started to wait for the “right moment” again, which would never come.

“Sherlock,” he began, after deciding to just come straight to the point. “We’ve known each other for quite a while now…”

He kept watching Sherlock’s face carefully for a reaction, but the detective’s expression remained relatively neutral.

“We work together, we’re living together – “

“…and you give me cues for my deductions,” Sherlock cut in, now looking slightly amused.  
This was not going well.

“No, I don’t. Or maybe I do. However.”

Now that he’d come this far, John wasn’t going to get sidetracked, not even by Sherlock’s unnecessary smart comments.

“We even went travelling together recently. People assume we’re a couple all the time, anyway, so… Would you mind if I called you my boyfriend in the future?”

Sherlock’s first reaction was to go rigid and fall silent.  
For a couple of seconds, he stared at John and said nothing, until – thankfully – their meals were served, which was a convenient interruption.  
So far, so good, John tried to cheer himself up. At least Sherlock hadn’t rejected him right away.

“So, John,” the detective said softly after the waitress had gone. “Does that… Does it have any consequences?”

“Consequences?” John echoed.

“Yes. What do you expect of me? That we’ll kiss, share a bed, hold hands – or whatever people do?”

“Only if you want to.”

John tried to smile confidently, because insecurity was really not what they needed now.

“I thought things would automatically develop in some way or other, once we’ve stated that we’re in a relationship.”

“But you must have expectations,” Sherlock replied, sounding skeptical. “You have needs. You usually date women –“

“Right, _usually._ I’ve never had a serious relationship with a man before, but now I’m… already in one, sort of. With you. At least that’s what it looks like, although I never planned it that way.”

He shrugged, and resorted to trying some of his pasta. It was delicious.

“At the moment, I’m not expecting anything of you,” he continued when Sherlock stayed silent. “We didn’t have any rules up to now, and I don’t want to establish any. I just want to take things as they come.”

Sherlock glanced away, still doubtful, nervously rubbing his hands together. This was going to be difficult. John suddenly regretted asking. Part of him just wanted to go home, pretend this conversation never happened, and never speak of it again.

“You’re the relationship expert, John, but at least about this one I know a couple of things, too. I think ‘boyfriend’ is not the right word, at least for now. It’s true, we’ve never had any rules up to now, as friends. In the other category, there will be rules. You can tell me as often as you want that you don’t have any expectations. Perhaps you really don’t, but other people do. There would be pressure on us to behave in certain ways. I don’t know if that kind of relationship is right for me, John, as you know, because I’ve told you often enough it’s not what I’m looking for. I might not be able to live up to those expectations, and then we’d probably have to break up. That means, I would lose you.”

He looked up from his untouched food, and John’s heart beat a little faster as the beautiful silvery eyes met his own.

“And that’s the last thing I want.”

 

They finished their meals in silence, more or less, and if they talked, then only about other topics. John’s feelings were a mixture of disappointment and confusion, because he didn’t understand what Sherlock actually wanted, and the conversation had gone differently than he’d hoped.  
At the same time, he felt a strange kind of warmth inside. He hadn’t expected such an open answer from Sherlock about relationships – and especially not the confession that he didn’t want to lose John.  
His openness was a sign of trust, too, and that was a start. Perhaps they could build something more on that.

At least, John’s worst fears hadn’t come true: That Sherlock would laugh at his interest… Or that he already loved someone else.

 

John had just finished the rest of his drink and was going to raise his hand to wave to the waitress and ask for the bill, when he noticed something on said hand. It was something he hadn’t seen on himself in a while.  
Small black letters had appeared on his hand, as if somebody had written on his skin in black pen. It was Cyrillic script, probably, handwritten and absolutely unreadable.

Quickly, he tried to hide his hand and act as if nothing had happened. But of course, hiding anything from Sherlock was next to impossible. The detective was already staring at the spot on John’s skin with those piercing eyes.  
For some reason, Sherlock seemed a bit unsettled by the sight, if not shocked.

 _Oh, of course,_ John thought. _He just put two and two together: The writing suddenly appeared on my hand, I definitely didn’t write it myself, and he didn’t write anything on his own hand, either – I would have seen it if he had. That means I have a soulmate, and it’s not him. He knows, and it scares him, because he really is afraid of losing me. Perhaps he’s more in love with me than he wants to admit._

“This… Well…” John kept stuttering pointlessly for a few moments, then he pulled himself together. “That’s something I already had as a child.”

He laughed, trying to make the situation less tense, but it didn’t sound right even in his own ears.

“You know, soulmates and all that. Some people really have one. It doesn’t have to mean anything, though. I’m sorry it happened now, of all times.”

“Feminine,” Sherlock stated tonelessly. At John’s questioning look, he nodded towards the writing. “Feminine handwriting.”

“Yes.” John nodded. “I thought the same. Even though it’s not easy to see, when someone’s writing in a hurry.”

“And in Cyrillic letters,” Sherlock added. He sounded slightly amused now, though his expression stayed serious. “Very few spelling mistakes, however.”

Now John got a little wary. He leaned over the table and eyed Sherlock suspiciously, in search of a sign that this was one of his magic tricks.

“Be honest – can you really see all that, at this distance?”

“No,” Sherlock answered. He swallowed audibly, obviously struggling to retain his composure.  
This hesitating and beating around the bush was starting to get on John’s nerves.

“Damn it, Sherlock, what’s wrong with you?”

Without a word, Sherlock turned his own hand towards John – and there was the same writing on his skin.

“What -?”

“The same, John. It’s the same person, obviously.”

He took a deep breath. John didn’t know what to say at all.

“It started when I was five. As far as I can remember. A small drawing on my left arm.”

Pensively, John thought back to his own first experience of this kind – he’d been a little older than five, the exact age he couldn’t remember, but it had been something on his arm as well. A small, clumsy drawing of a plump animal. He’d mistaken it for a bruise at first. He’d only been taught the actual meaning and the concept of soulmates much later.

“That little elephant she drew?”

Sherlock frowned in confusion at first, but then the corners of his mouth twitched upwards.

“It was a horse, John.”

For a moment, they stared at each other wordlessly, but then they both burst out laughing.

 

They were still laughing when they were leaving the restaurant, after paying for their drinks (the meals had been free, just like Sherlock had promised). The other guests gave them irritated looks.

In the doorway, they suddenly stood very close to each other. John was tempted to put his arm around Sherlock, and puzzled momentarily over his own feelings. Was it a wish to give his friend a cordial hug while recovering from a laughing fit together, or was it more of a romantic wish for closeness? He didn’t really know.

“So it looks like we have the same soulmate,” Sherlock said, still grinning.

“Well, then at least we have one thing in common,” John replied.

“Shouldn’t that make us mortal enemies? I mean… Rivalry? Isn’t that a thing, normally?”

It was not like John hadn't wondered the same, but he didn't feel anything like that. Probably because the person the handwriting belonged to was a stranger, like an abstract concept, and there was nothing to get jealous over. He would need time to parse the information that it was the same person for both of them, though.

“When have we ever been normal,” he said lightly. Instead of hugging Sherlock, he gave him a pat on the back. Anything else would have been too much, and too little at the same time.

They started walking down the street in silence, while cars and cabs passed them by and a neon light on the street corner flickered restlessly.  
John felt reminded of their first case. The serial suicides, the drugs bust, and everything that had happened afterwards. He glanced up at the sky. There were no stars tonight.

“What are you thinking about?” Sherlock asked. Sometimes John was glad the detective couldn’t actually read minds.

“Our first night.”

Sherlock gave him a very confused look, but then he started laughing again.

“Our first case, you mean. Yes, I think back to that quite often, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Only now, John realized how close they still were, walking right next to each other.

“John,” Sherlock said softly.

“Hm?”

“I actually think I would enjoy holding hands with you.”

A smile spread across John’s face as Sherlock’s fingers slipped into his coat pocket and found their way to his hand. He took them and held them all the way back to Baker Street, relieved to have at least this one thing he could hold on to.


	2. Samples

Two hours later, they sat at the kitchen table in 221b, and Sherlock tried to analyse the mysterious scribble on their hands scientifically. It had always bothered him that there was no conclusive explanation of the soulmate phenomenon. So he examined the writing from every possible angle, took skin samples – for which he scratched and poked John’s skin much more carefully than his own – and made ample use of his magnifying glasses, microscopes and chemical tests.  
John endured it all patiently, and Sherlock found the questions he asked very helpful for his thought process.

“Can you read it, by the way – the writing?”

“Cornflakes and milk, it says,” Sherlock answered. “Someone’s making a shopping list.”

“In Russia.”

“Or in the Ukraine, in Belarus, Bulgaria, Serbia…”

“Okay, okay, I know – the list of countries where she could be right now is pretty damn long, and the area is huge.”

While Sherlock was rather intrigued by this range of possibilities, John had obviously hoped for a clue that would narrow them down, and he seemed frustrated at the lack of simple answers.

“I wish she could read it if I wrote something on my skin, too,” he added. “Then we could write each other messages, and exchange addresses. But it never works both ways, does it?”

“No. But the Cyrillic script doesn’t have to mean that she’s in any of those countries”, Sherlock tried to cheer him up, and realized too late that this comment was rather doing the opposite. “Only that she grew up in one of them, or lived there for a while… probably.”

“Well, she does write in English sometimes, too.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “And in Spanish, and once there was a fragment of a sentence in French.”

He was still amazed by the fact that he could now _share_ these experiences with someone. Not just someone with the same phenomenon, but someone who actually had the same person as a soulmate, who’d seen the same things on his skin as Sherlock for all his life. It was incredible, almost sensational – scientifically speaking.  
Emotionally, it made him feel deeply connected to John, in the same way he’d always felt, but stronger. He wanted to touch him again, to wrap his fingers around John’s hand and hold it, to memorize what it felt like.

“At this point, the possibilities are endless,” he went on. “For example, she could be using the Cyrillic alphabet as some sort of code, because outside of Eastern Europe not many people can read it.”

“Ha, now don’t make a secret agent out of her.” John laughed. “She writes shopping lists on her hands, she’s probably a stay-at-home wife. Do you think she’s married?”

Sherlock ignored John’s question and his somewhat worried look.

“Writing shopping lists in secret code doesn't seem plausible, I admit”, he pondered. “Unless that’s also a code for an even bigger secret.”

The idea seemed silly, but somewhere deep inside he felt that it was not necessarily wrong – although he was of course aware that he had no proof for this theory at all.

“Did you document it, by the way?” He changed the topic.

John seemed to take a couple of seconds before he could follow Sherlock’s train of thought.

“Document it? You mean, if I took notes on the phenomenon?”

“Notes, photographs…”

“Why would I?”

“Drawings…”

“Have you ever seen me draw?”

“Occasionally,” Sherlock said. “You doodle on your notepad now and then when you’re talking on the phone. It’s mostly stick figures and genitals, though. For a doctor, the way you illustrate human anatomy is almost alarming, I must say.”

John sighed.

“I’m glad you pay so much attention to my habits, Sherlock. However, I don’t have any records of the phenomenon, no. Only in my memory.”

Sherlock had his doubts about the accuracy of John’s memory, but he decided not to comment on it this time.

“Well, I for one have been keeping record,” he said, and reached for a cardboard box that he’d fetched from his bedroom right after coming home.

“What's in there?” John asked, and began to search the contents of the box as Sherlock placed it in front of him.

“Sherlock, this… This is stunning,” he muttered while looking through the photographs, drawings and descriptions with date and time of day of nearly every single phenomenon that had appeared on Sherlock’s skin over the years.

“Oh, I remember this one!” John exclaimed occasionally. “Ah, yes, the little daisies on the wrist. I got beaten up for that at school. And the little mouse on the back of the hand. It looks smaller on yours. This one – on your leg? I never noticed it.”

“It was just a smudge,” Sherlock said. “Biro. Her hand slipped.”

“Yes, of course. It’s just… I still can’t believe it. The same that I had.”

He took some of the photos out of the box and spread them on the table, creating something like a timeline. Sherlock had never looked at them this way. It was odd, seeing the child’s drawings and the first clumsy letters next to the colourful patterns and pictures from her teenage years, and then the serious and practiced adult writing. If he’d calculated her age correctly, she’d become an adult rather early, a little too soon.

“Stations of a life,” Sherlock rambled, because he needed to verbalize his thoughts. “Not the important stations, only meaningless doodles – but quite meaningful in the life of two other people at the same time. John, this is a life-changing discovery. Scientifically speaking.”

“Have you ever tried to find her?” John asked vaguely.

Sherlock managed not to roll his eyes, but in his opinion, John was missing the point with his sentimental questions. This wasn’t about emotions.

“Perhaps with the help of your brother?”

“No,” Sherlock replied, and decided that was all he would say to this topic.

He’d never been interested in the implications of the soulmate concept, the possible interactions and relationships that could develop from it. The idea of the inevitable romance that thousands of movies and novels made out of it was rather foreign to him, so he’d chosen to ignore it. He was only interested in the science of the phenomenon itself.

“What do you think – how often does it happen that two people have the same soulmate?” John asked.

“Well...”

This was indeed a good question. Sherlock thought about it for a moment.

“If we consider the fact that the soulmate phenomenon affects about fifty to sixty percent of the population – so it’s really widespread – the same marks appearing on the skin of two different people at the same time is _very_ rare. I’ve only heard rumors about it. Some sources say it happens to less than one percent of the people concerned, although there is certainly a number of unknown cases…”

“I’ve never heard of it before,” John admitted. “Only in fiction, you know, the usual story of rivalry and murder and the victory of the one true love. I thought people were only making it up. Did you find any studies about it?”

“Not really,” Sherlock said. “There are some reports on the internet. I found them by accident when I was doing research on a murder case.”

“Oh. So, how do people usually handle it?”

Sherlock shrugged. He hadn’t paid much attention to the reports back then, because he’d never considered that they could be important to himself one day. He searched his mind for details on the topic, but there was not much to be found.

“Most of them were afraid, I think. One woman wrote she’d seen another girl in a café who had exactly the same marks on her skin as herself. She asked on an internet forum what she could do, because _of course_ she wanted her soulmate only for herself. No one could really give her serious advice. That’s what it was like, in general. People get jealous and possessive, they feel betrayed, they are scared.”

“Well, I’m not,” John said. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” Sherlock said. “Why would I be worried? To the contrary, I am thrilled, John! An extremely rare and little-known phenomenon is happening right under our noses, affecting ourselves. It could hardly be more intriguing.”

“Well, that’s –.” John’s reply ended in a yawn. “Ah, sorry. That was the sign for me to go to bed, I guess. It’s late.”  
He stretched his arms and got up from his chair.

“Mmh.”

Sherlock resumed his position behind the binocular to take another look at the skin samples on the slides. He’d taken notes on skin sample examinations several times over the years. He was sure a comparison of the older data with the new samples would reveal some interesting details.  
John mumbled something in the background while Sherlock began to search the contents of the box once more.

When he looked up again, he was alone.

*

The result of Sherlock’s tests was that the writing on John’s skin had the same characteristics as his own. Traces of the black felt tip pen that their soulmate had used were detectable – not on the surface where it should be, but in the deeper layers of the skin, almost like a temporary tattoo.

But that was hardly any new information.

Meanwhile, the writing on his hand started to fade. Lost in thought, he traced it with his finger, feeling a familiar sadness at the sight.  
Somewhere in the world, there was this person, most probably a woman, who sometimes painted on her arms or wrote on her hands, and these marks were the only thing he ever saw of her.

Pushing the melancholy to the back of his mind, he started to clean his science equipment as far as necessary, and put the skin samples into the fridge. With a bit of luck, they would still be fresh enough for further tests the next day.

He got ready for bed, but hesitated to go to his own room.  
It was not like he hadn’t thought about sharing a bed with John before, but tonight he felt drawn to him more than ever.  
If relationship discussions and handholding were a thing between them now, perhaps John would also be up for a bit of cuddling? It didn’t seem too unlikely.

*

John had always been a light sleeper, so the creaking of the door to his room woke him up immediately.

“Mh, Sherlock,” he mumbled. “Don’t stand in the door, it’s getting cold in here. Just come in.”

He switched the bedside lamp on, and smiled as Sherlock shut the door behind himself and pointed at the bed.

“May I?”

“Yes, of course. What’s wrong? You don’t come up here late at night for no reason.”

Too late, it occurred to Sherlock that he hadn’t explained himself properly, and that John probably thought he was just going to sit down on the bed and talk. The startled look on John’s face when he crawled under the sheets instead spoke volumes.

“Is yours fading, too?” he asked in order to avoid an awkward silence, holding his hand in front of John’s eyes. The writing was barely visible now.

“Yes, it is,” John said with a glance at his own hand. “She’s washing it off, I guess.”

He traced the writing with his finger, just like Sherlock had half an hour ago, with an expression that made Sherlock wonder if John felt the same kind of helpless melancholy.

“To be honest, I’ve never thought about her this much before,” John said quietly. “But now I’m…”

He shook his head.

“I can’t explain. Do you… feel the same, Sherlock? Anything?”

“A bit of sadness,” Sherlock confessed, which caused a small grin to appear on John’s face. “But that’s been there before, whenever… Whenever it happened.”

He contemplated if, besides scientific interest, his feelings about his soulmate had really changed in any way since he’d discovered that she was John’s soulmate as well. He wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know.”

John nodded. The fact that Sherlock felt anything at all seemed to be enough for him right now. Suddenly Sherlock felt the urge to laugh at the whole situation – the two of them together in the middle of the night, discussing soulmates and showing each other their marks like schoolboys, while sharing a bed for no actual reason. The more he thought about it, the funnier it became, until his eyes met John’s, and they both burst into giggles.

“Sherlock.”

He glanced up questioningly. They were so close to each other now, and the warmth and gentleness he saw in John’s eyes sent a wave of feelings through Sherlock that he couldn’t even name, he only knew they were all good.  
No matter how strange the situation was, he was suddenly sure he would remember this moment as one of the best of his life.

“Do you want to sleep with me, or do you just want to sleep?” John asked.

Sherlock was dumbstruck for several seconds as he realized he hadn’t even considered that John might say something like this. Somehow he’d automatically assumed that the idea of sex between them was as unimaginable for John as it was for himself. He tended to forget that sharing a bed was usually expected to lead to sex, especially between two people who had recently agreed that they were in a relationship.

“Just sleep,” he said, and pointedly closed his eyes.

While John switched the lamp off and went back to sleep, Sherlock started to ask himself if having sex with John was really an option, how he felt about it, and how John would have reacted if he’d said yes. He was still thinking about it when he fell asleep.


	3. Found and Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Navigating their relationship is more difficult than Sherlock and John thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some symptoms of John's PTSD will be mentioned.

They didn’t share the bed every night, but it became a habit. After the discovery of their identical soulmate phenomena, John felt like the bond between him and Sherlock was stronger than ever before.

 

It was one of those nights when John woke up shaking and sweating from one of the bad dreams that bothered him frequently. Sherlock, who'd been lying next to him, sat up and turned the light on immediately, as if he’d sensed in his sleep that something was wrong. He sat up and embraced John loosely, so that John could easily get away if he wanted to.

“Alright,” John said, his voice weak from sleep and fear. The ghosts of the war whispered to him from the dark corners of the room. Danger was in the air, mines were about to explode, people would be bleeding out under his hands soon. He could see it happening right in front of his eyes, even when he was awake: the blood, the smell of death, the screaming. He was at home, he was safe, but the fights were still going on. He wasn’t alright, he would never be. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Sherlock didn’t say a word. Reluctantly, John allowed himself to relax and to lean into the embrace. Sherlock’s warmth was like an anchor, holding John in place, restoring order and control to the world. After a while, he started humming next to John’s ear, one of the melodies he often played on his violin, so softly it was barely recognizable, but loud enough to drown out the war. John felt his breathing slow down, and he let his head rest against Sherlock’s shoulder. The world around them faded away into strange visions of walking through fog in a deep forest.  
The next thing John remembered was being woken up by sunlight and the smell of fresh coffee. That morning, he thought he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life with Sherlock.

 

With more physical closeness came more intimacy.

He’d always imagined that sex with Sherlock would be either spectacular, or that Sherlock would be afraid of it and prefer to stay celibate. The truth was a little different.  
One evening, John was relaxing in Sherlock’s bed and reading an old novel by Agatha Christie. The shower was running in the bathroom, making a pleasant background noise that added to the atmosphere of a cloudy, rainy day in John’s imagination. He was so immersed in the book that he didn’t notice when the shower stopped running and Sherlock came out of the bathroom in his dressing gown and pyjamas.

He probably stood in front of the bed for quite a while before John became aware of his presence. Sherlock stayed silent when John stopped reading and glanced up at him, but he furrowed his brow in that funny way that meant he had something important to say, but didn’t know how.

“Sherlock?”

“John.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

“Yes. John, what would you say if I –“ He broke off and hesitated again. “What would you say if I touched you in… in a sexual way?”

John put the book down and took a deep breath. Just so, he managed not to look all too surprised or shocked at the question. He had a vague feeling that his next words would be very important, as if something fragile had been put in his hands. Offering Sherlock sex right then and there didn’t feel right; laughing at the idea or dismissing it would have been even worse.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t mind,” John answered with a soft smile. He was glad the words came out exactly the way he wanted. Sherlock seemed to relax a little, and John pulled the covers aside and gestured towards the empty side of the bed. “Now come here and let me explain Miss Marple’s case to you, so you can tell me how much quicker you would have solved it.”

Sherlock grinned and obliged.

Nothing happened that night. While Sherlock was mumbling and whispering in his sleep, John lay awake like a schoolboy with his first crush, wondering if Sherlock really found him attractive.

“You’re interesting,” Sherlock replied, a week later, when John had finally found the nerve to ask him about it. “But I don’t know how to do this.”

“Well, I usually start with kissing,” John said, half joking. “But you don’t like that, so maybe we should just start by taking our clothes off.”

“You first.”

Minutes later, they were both naked, and Sherlock started to explore John’s body with his hands.

“I’m curious,” he said, as if it was a confession.

His lack of experience was obvious, his soft touches felt like butterflies on John’s skin.  
Patiently, John allowed him to touch and explore and experiment, day after day. When his patience faded, he tried to encourage Sherlock to do more than that – until he realized that it would never happen. Sherlock was curious, indeed, but he was obviously not interested in “more than that”. John realized there had been a misunderstanding. He considered bringing it up and explaining to Sherlock that there was a difference between sensual-erotic touching and actual sex, but John was quite sure it wouldn’t change anything. Out of respect for Sherlock’s boundaries, he decided not to express his frustration, and focused on enjoying what they had.

 

“Your heart’s beating nearly twice as fast now,” Sherlock whispered reverently as he lay with his head on John’s chest after a naughty little experiment that hadn’t even required touching.

It made John feel special, being experimented on and marveled at by a real scientist, as if he wasn’t just an ordinary bloke.

“Are you keeping a record?” he asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Liar. Of course you do.”

 

He let Sherlock deduce his scars. All of them – how old were they, what caused them, why did it happen. There were so many, bigger and smaller ones, John had stopped counting them at some point. Talking about them, correcting the little mistakes in Sherlock’s deductions, brought back old memories. Most of them were good, even though they had to do with injuries – that one scar on his elbow, for example, a reminder of a summer camp when he was eleven and happily playing with his friends. The one on his knee – a rough rugby match John’s team had won in the end. One scar he got from falling off a bike while staring longingly at a girl, his first crush (many puns involving “crash” and “crush” were made that night).  
The other scars – the other memories – were not so good. Thankfully, Sherlock was understanding enough to avoid mentioning anything that had to do with Afghanistan. Sometimes he kissed the scar on John’s shoulder. It was the only kind of kiss he gave.

 

They spent an evening on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and Sherlock allowed John to try and deduce _his_ scars. He didn’t have as many as John, but they were interesting enough. Some were old and fading, others still easily visible.

“Oh, did you fall off your bike as a kid, too?”

“No, out of a tree. I was nine years old, and trying to hide because I didn’t want to eat Mummy’s awful potato soup. Mycroft found me, but one of the branches broke when I was climbing back down, and I nearly broke my arm. In the end, I was allowed to have ice cream for dinner.”

“I hope the ice cream was worth it." John chuckled, and pointed at another scar, a thin line between Sherlock's ribs. "That one must've been a stab wound. From a fight with a serial killer, I bet.”

“Not quite. It was a bank robber. I tried to catch him, I thought he was unarmed. Didn’t see the knife coming. That’s what happens when you jump to conclusions. Three days in hospital while the criminal was still free. What a waste of time.”

“Did you catch him in the end?”

Sherlock smiled proudly.

“Of course I did.”

“Impressive.”

John found the other scars, too – needle marks and other reminders of the darker parts of Sherlock’s past. Although he had thousands of questions, John didn’t ask about them. Gently, he stroked Sherlock’s arm from the wrist up to the shoulder, feeling the soft skin and the old scar tissue, enjoying the small appreciative noises Sherlock made at his caresses.  
They sat like that for nearly an hour, Sherlock’s skin pale and warm under John’s hands in the light of the fire, until Mrs. Hudson walked in on them and they jumped up and scrambled into their clothes.

“So, is John your boyfriend now?” John overheard her asking Sherlock in a hushed voice the next morning.

A long silence followed.

“No, he’s not,” Sherlock answered eventually. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I’m just asking because, you know, some of the things you’ve been doing with each other lately could hardly be _just_ friendship.” The salacious wink was audible in her voice.

_“Mrs. Hudson!"_ Sherlock hissed. "Keep your opinions to yourself. It's true that John is very special to me, but the specifics of our relationship are none of your business. Make yourself useful and bring me some biscuits instead.”

His words kept nagging at John, as they echoed through his mind over and over, at work, during dinner, in bed.

_No, he’s not. He’s not my boyfriend._

Admittedly, most of the time Sherlock and John spent together still revolved around crime solving. Technically, they were friends, just enjoying some of the benefits of a more intimate relationship. It should have made him feel free, John thought, but all it did was making him insecure. A part of him feared that sooner or later, the detective’s overactive mind would find something more interesting than John’s presence and John’s body to focus on, and what they had would end as quickly and unspectacularly as it had begun. He could do without that kind of freedom, and he started wishing for answers.

*

“Listen to me, Sherlock. I need you to answer me, because I don’t understand you. We’ve been together for nearly five months now, why can’t I just say we’re boyfriends?”

John’s voice sounded through the cellar rooms of the police station, increasingly angry. In order to get Sherlock’s attention, John pushed himself between him and the file cabinet the detective had been searching for a specific file about a cold case.

“What else do you want me to call it?”

Grudgingly, Sherlock stopped looking through the files. He’d been acting cold and arrogant all day, taciturn and uapproachable, which was equal parts attractive and annoying.

“What am I to you?”

“My partner,” Sherlock suggested halfheartedly.

“Seriously?” John snorted. “It could just mean we’re working together. That’s nothing new.”

“We’re not doing anything _new,”_ Sherlock replied. “We’re just like we’ve always been, besides the fact that you keep harping on about the topic.”

“We share a bed, Sherlock. We have sex.”

“Oh, do we?” Sherlock muttered indifferently.

“Answer me,” John insisted.

Sherlock tried to reach past him into the cabinet.

“Get out of the way, John," he said brusquely. "I’ve found the Summers file.”

“Sherlock, are you just going to ignore me?”

The detective pulled a rather heavy folder out from behind John’s back, turned away and started leafing through the dusty pages.

“Do you even love me at all, in any way?”

The pain John heard in his own voice was unexpected, and suddenly he was on the verge of tears. His inability to keep his emotions under control made him angry. In the back of his mind, he was aware that his therapist wouldn’t approve of this reaction; but when Sherlock just kept ignoring him, it was too much.

“For God's sake, Sherlock!” he yelled.  

Before he could stop himself, he grabbed a bunch of files from the cabinet and threw them to the floor at Sherlock’s feet. That, at least, finally got a reaction out of Sherlock - he flinched, and stared at John with something between surprise and shock.

“How heartless are you really?" John heard himself ranting on. "You’re a genius, and yet you can’t seem to answer a simple question. Is it too much for you, or am I just not enough?”

He drew a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm himself. It didn’t help, he was still pissed off.

“You know what, I’m sorry I said we have sex. Because we don’t, really. Real sex requires passion, Sherlock, and you’ll never have that, because the only bodies you’re passionate about are dead ones. Your own heart is as cold as a corpse's.”

He knew he’d gone too far. The weak triumph he felt after speaking his mind faded away when he saw the change in Sherlock’s expression. The hurt and bewildered look in his eyes made John immediately regret his words. Before he got a chance to take them back, Sherlock turned and walked away, the heavy folder pressed against his chest, back through the cellar and up the stairs.  
Minutes later, John had calmed down enough to gather up the files and put them neatly back into the cabinet, as if nothing had happened. He went back upstairs and started looking for Sherlock, but the detective was nowhere to be seen.

“Your not-boyfriend just left,” Sally Donovan said absent-mindedly while tapping away at her computer. “Seemed upset. Does he need help?”

“No, I don’t think so,” John answered. Sally's eyes narrowed at the doubt in his voice. “He'll be alright.”


	4. Between the lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took me so long to update this.

Feelings and relationships. Friendship or love, romance or sex. Sherlock’s mind was able to process many things, but not these. There was no space on his hard drive for answers to the questions that were currently on his mind.  
Had he ever understood the difference between friendship and love?  Had he ever known where exactly the line was and if or when he’d crossed it? If so, he’d deleted it, and he couldn’t remember.  
Things had been so easy before John. A lonely but simple life.  
Science and cases and riddles that looked impossibly complex to other people were easy for Sherlock, but emotions were too complicated.

It started to rain, and he kept wandering aimlessly through the streets, the folder with the cold case safely hidden under his coat. The nicotine patches suddenly weren’t enough, and he thought about smoking, and then about something stronger than cigarettes. The ghosts he’d created for himself would never leave him alone, and escaping the pain was starting to look like a good option.

Just when he’d decided to try and find Wiggins, Sherlock realized he’d ended up right in front of his favourite place in the world outside of 221b: the morgue at St. Bart’s hospital.

*

“Molly Hooper, you’re the only one who can help me,” Sherlock said as he walked into the lab, where Molly was pipetting a dead man’s blood into some test tubes.

“Another unsolved one?” Molly asked with only mild interest. She nodded towards the folder Sherlock was still carrying under his arm. “Admit it, you would never solve anything if I didn’t assist you.”

“That’s not true, Molly. Sometimes I do find the solution without your help.”

“Only in the boring cases.”

“Maybe. But this one isn’t boring. The mysterious case of Mr. Summers – you’ve probably read about it in the papers, Molly. Edward Summers disappeared five years ago, in the middle of the day, in the center of London, without a trace. Nobody ever heard of him again, and eventually his wife decided to move on and pronounce him dead. The next morning, she found an unsigned envelope in the mail. It contained no letter, no message and no address – only Mr. Summers’ wedding ring.

“She contacted the police, and the case was reopened. Pictures of Mr. Summers were published in the papers, asking possible eye-witnesses to contact the police if they knew anything. So far, there’s been only one interesting clue, and it’s quite intriguing: Mr. Summers checked into a hotel in London a couple of times within the past five years – so either he’s still alive, or at least he was alive for a while after his disappearance. The question is, where is he now? And why doesn’t he contact his wife?”

“There could be many reasons for that.” The prompt answer indicated that Molly had thought about the case before, after reading about it in the papers. “Perhaps he just wanted to get away from her and start a new life somewhere else. Perhaps he committed some kind of crime.”

“Then he wouldn’t have stayed in a hotel in London, especially not under his own name.”

“That’s a tricky case indeed. How can I help you then? There’s no body, no blood, no brain matter, nothing for me to analyze.”

For a moment, Sherlock considered talking about the case only, but it wasn’t what he’d come here for this time. He had to get his other problems out of the way first if he wanted to be able to focus properly on his work.

“Molly, before I can even start trying to solve the case, I need your help with something that you know more about than I do.”

“Alright, then.” Lovely Molly, she never got on Sherlock’s nerves like other people by asking too many questions. “What do you need?”

“Relationship advice.”

*

Since he couldn’t find Sherlock, John decided to try to solve the Summers case on his own. He didn’t actually believe it was possible to find any clues without Sherlock’s help, he just had nothing better to do at the moment.

He strolled past the shop windows in the street where the mysterious Mr. Summers had been seen last before his disappearance.

“Have you seen this man?” he asked a stranger at a bus stop, showing him one of the photos from the papers.

The man squinted at the picture and shook his head.  
Something about his eyes reminded John of one of the soldiers he’d seen dying in Afghanistan, one of the lives he hadn’t saved.

John apologized and turned away. He kept walking, but his knees suddenly felt weak and his breathing sped up.  
His mind filled with visions of his last days in the army. He was awake and falling down into the depths of a nightmare at the same time. He saw himself, barely alive and bleeding out in the sand. He wondered if flowers would grow from all the blood in the desert, and then he wondered if this was his final thought. Someone shouted in the distance – the man who'd shot him, probably. _Come back,_ John thought. _Come back and kill me. Let me die as a hero._

It seemed like hours, waiting for death to come, but nothing happened. Then he suddenly woke up in a hospital. When he asked the nurses how he'd got there, they laughed and said he’d been in a coma for weeks. They’d saved his life, and he hated them for it.

He returned to London as a nobody, a ruin of a man with depression and PTSD. Only Ella and her therapy sessions kept him going – therapy meant he was making an effort, it meant he hadn’t given up. Yet.  
Then Sherlock Holmes happened.

In Sherlock’s presence, John felt alive. He felt good. He felt like he was somebody again, a man with achievements he could be proud of. There was no explanation for his attraction to the weird detective; until John started to realize that shame was what kept him from admitting that he was in love with Sherlock.

John had pushed all the fear aside. He told himself he had nothing to lose. He felt so hopeful. Asking Sherlock to be his boyfriend was by far the bravest thing John had ever done in his sad little life.  
Sherlock’s insecurity and ultimate rejection of his feelings felt like a slap in the face, like drowning in ice cold water.

He knew it wasn’t Sherlock’s fault for not loving him back, but that didn’t make it any less painful. The fact that apparently Sherlock _couldn’t_ love anyone at all was currently the only thing that made John feel a little better. At least Sherlock wouldn’t choose anyone else over him.

But then again, there was still the soulmate phenomenon. If John and Sherlock had the same soulmate, and they actually found that person, they would both fall in love with her. Even Sherlock, because it was inevitable. She would have to choose between them, and of course she would want Sherlock. Who would ever choose John?

“Kill me,” he whispered to the man in his nightmarish visions. “Come back and kill me, I’m useless and I’ve done enough damage.”

When something touched his shoulder, he didn’t even flinch. _The bullet. Finally._

“Are you Dr. Watson?” A hoarse voice asked behind his back.

John turned around and saw an old man, obviously homeless, probably part of Sherlock’s network. His hair and his beard were a mess, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath smelled faintly of whiskey. In his hand, he held last week’s newspaper with the picture of Mr. Summers on the front page.

 “This man,” he said and pointed at the photo. “I know him. He’s dead.”

*

“You have to talk to each other,” Molly had said.  
She’d come up with some useful suggestions, and Sherlock had to admit that the better he got to know her, the more he valued her opinions. Not least because she understood him in a way only another scientist could. To make it easier for him to explain himself to John, she’d come up with the idea to make a list or an Excel chart where they could both write down what they wanted in a relationship, and try to find compromises. He left St. Bart’s, hours later, with a feeling of hope.

“Being in love – do you know what it’s supposed to be like?” Sherlock said to the cabbie, a grey-haired woman who was maneuvering the taxi slowly and precisely through the city back to Baker Street.

“Ha-ha, of course,” she said. “Butterflies in your stomach, only thinking about that one person all day and all night, missing them as soon as they leave the room. I wish I could feel like that about someone right now, ha-ha. I’m going through a divorce.”

What she’d described was not how Sherlock felt about John.  
He did think about John now and then, but certainly not all day. Work was on his mind most of the time. He did miss John’s company in many situations, but not as soon as he left the room; that would’ve been a little too much. He wasn’t even sure if he _wanted_ to feel like that about anyone. It sounded terribly exhausting and distracting.

“What if you don’t feel like that, but you still can’t imagine a life without that one person anymore?”

“Hmm. Well, then it’s probably more like friendship. Perhaps the person is not the one for you, after all! We’re all looking for _the one,_ aren’t we, whether we have a soulmate or not. Do you have a soulmate?”

“Yes, but it’s not … It’s a different person.”

“See? I told you, ha-ha. Keep searching!”

She kept talking for a while. Sherlock stopped listening. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Sherlock’s heart beat faster when he saw that the text he’d received was from John.

_JW: Met homeless man on the street, he said Summers is dead_

_SH: Is this going to be your new writing style, or are you so angry with me that you don’t consider me worthy of complete sentences anymore?_

_SH: You’re even leaving out the exclamation marks now._

_SH: John?_

_SH: I’ll be home in 10 minutes._

_SH: Probably 13 if the cabbie doesn’t stop talking._

Sherlock had to force himself to stop texting. He could have spent the rest of the cab ride sending texts John wouldn’t answer.

_I think I love you. Please don’t leave me._

This was not a text he intended to send. If John really wanted a breakup, if he actually wanted to move out and leave forever, a silly little text message wouldn’t change his mind. Apart from that, if he wasn’t planning to leave, Sherlock’s poor declaration “I think I love you” after months of being together _could_ change his mind.

“This is ridiculous,” Sherlock whispered to himself, and deleted the text.

*

John’s hands were shaking. The screen of his phone suddenly looked blurry as he stared down at Sherlock’s text messages. It wasn’t anything Sherlock had said, but what could be read between the lines: John had sent him important new information about the case they were working on, and Sherlock hadn’t even reacted to it. His only concern was if John was still angry with him.

“He really loves me. Oh God, I’m such an idiot.”

It was all too much, too many things he didn’t know how to deal with.

He left the kitchen and opened the door to the staircase and shouted down to Mrs. Hudson, just to have a normal conversation for once.

“Is everything alright, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Yes, I’m fine. If you heard some noise, I was just tidying up here a bit. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“No, it’s fine. I was just wondering.”

“Have you heard anything from Sherlock?”

“Yes, he texted me. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Good to know. I’m always glad when I don’t have to worry about you silly boys. Drink your tea!”

*

When Sherlock arrived in 221b, John was waiting for him in the kitchen, and filled two mugs with tea for them. They drank it in silence, without pointing out that the tea was only lukewarm.

“Tell me about the homeless man,” Sherlock said after a while. “What does he know about Summers?”

John reached across the table and took Sherlock’s hand. He kept his voice factual and calm, but let his fingers caress the back of Sherlock’s hand while he spoke. Sherlock listened intently with half-closed eyes and a hint of a smile.

“The man called himself Donny, and he didn’t make much sense. He said he knew Summers and saw him after he disappeared, late at night in a Tube station. Summers was arguing with a Russian named Sokolow. According to Donny, Sokolow shot Mr Summers in the head, and then several other men came running to the station. Some were Eastern European, some English. They took all of Summers’ clothes, his money and his briefcase. The body was put in a bag and carried away.”

Sherlock grinned. The old excitement came back, and John felt alive again.

“Did he mention Summers’ wedding ring?”

“That’s the most interesting part,” John said. “After the men left, Donny went to the station to see if they’d forgotten anything, maybe a couple of coins he could pick up. There were no coins, but he found the ring. He took it and sold it for fourty pounds to a woman the next day.”

“A woman.”

“Yes.”

“That makes no sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Fascinating.”


End file.
